Kenny Horst returns to the former AQ space on Wednesday

It's time for another email newsletter!

This one is all about our featured event: Drummer Kenny Horst, who owned and ran the venerated Artists’ Quarter jazz club, will appear with his quartet featuring pianist Will Kjeer, saxophonist Pete Whitman, and bassist Chris Bates, on Wednesday, November 17th, at 7:00pm at KJ’s Hideaway (a new music club in the former AQ space at 408 St Peter St, St Paul). This performance is presented by AARP MN & the Twin Cities Jazz Festival’s Jazz Fest Live series and will also be streamed live. More information on the show can be found here and you can get tickets here.

Thank you kindly!

We've gotten some very warm feedback from readers this past week:

So happy to see this happen. We often visit the Twin Cities and love Jazz especially at the venues that were in the Hamm building. Hope to be there soon.

So glad to get this email and all the information.  Cheers to future newsletters!!

Wow! What a nice surprise to see an email from the AQ!  I surely do appreciate the news, it's nice to feel a common thread these days after the past 18 months......thanks so much for getting in touch with us!  I look forward to any updates and news from you all!  Happy Thanksgiving! 

This is super. I am happy to be in touch my home town(s). Thank you so much!

I was pleasantly surprised to receive your email and applaud this endeavor. I look forward to receiving more AQ Newsletters. Thanks!

Former webmaster Al Iverson here. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Your positive feedback and kind words have been nourishing to our souls. Don Berryman and I have had a lot of fun putting the newsletter system back together and building these first few email newsletters. It's been great to reconnect with Kenny and others, including Kristen and Jeremy Siers, the new proprietors of that great space in the Hamm Building. And we're so glad to hear from all of you. We worked closely with Kenny Horst to put everything together and have been sharing all of your kind feedback with him.

That's it for now, just a short little email update. Not too much jazz this time around, but we'll work on that for next time, and in the meantime, I hope you'll come down to KJ's Hideaway on Wednesday to listen to Kenny, Will, Pete and Chris. I know it'll be a great show.

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Photo (Kenny Horst) by Don Berryman.

Welcome to the AQ Email Newsletter!

Welcome back to the Artists' Quarter email newsletter! The club might be closed, but we want to keep in touch with you, if that's okay. It's been a while since we last reached out, but we'll try to do better about that. Now we'll send a small number of emails a month (maybe one, maybe three), where we'll talk about jazz albums and musicians both new and old, what's going on in the world of jazz, and what's happening in the local music scene in the Twin Cities. If you'd like to unsubscribe, there's an unsubscribe link at the very bottom of this email, or feel free to reply to this email and we'll be happy to assist you.

If you're wondering what's been happening around these parts, here's what has been on our mind as of late:

We're missing Pamela Espeland. A prolific arts journalist and supporter of so much live music and more, Pamela passed away unexpectedly on Sunday, September 26th. You can read more about that here. Let's be glad that her personal website "bebopified" remains up as an archive of her wit and depth of commitment to supporting and writing about live jazz. She covered the arts at great length for Minnpost, and they've kindly remembered her here. Pamela is survived by her husband John Whiting, several children and grandchildren, and their dog Boris.

A new live music venue opens in St. Paul. Husband-and-wife team Jeremy and Kristen Siers have opened KJ's Hideaway, a new venue in what once was the Artists' Quarter space, located in the Hamm Building at 408 St. Peter Street in downtown St. Paul. The AQ, then owned by our own Kenny Horst, occupied the space from 2001-2013, and Lowell Pickett, co-owner of the Dakota, ran the space as "Vieux Carré" from 2015 through 2019. Read more about the opening of KJ's Hideaway here. And while the club will not solely focus on jazz, we're glad to hear that they are indeed including jazz in their focus, and we wish them success.

Speaking of the AQ, Kenny and KJ's Hideaway: Kenny Horst is returning for one night only to play at what used to be known as the Artists' Quarter! On Wednesday, November 17th, at 7:00 pm, drummer Kenny Horst leads a quartet with Will Kjeer on piano, Chris Bates on bass, and Pete Whitman on sax. Click here to purchase tickets. (Note: Proof of Vaccine/Negative Test within 72 hours required.) Find more details over on JazzPolice. And for more about the venue, KJ's Hideaway, click here or see the paragraph above. Can't make it? Find streaming info here. We hope to see you there!

Speaking of jazz at KJ's Hideaway, if you're looking for live music to check out this weekend, Atlantis Quartet is worth a trip down to the Hamm Building this Saturday, November 13th. Featuring four of Minnesota's most exciting improvisors and composers, saxophonist Brandon Wozniak, guitarist Zacc Harris, bassist Chris Bates, and drummer Pete Hennig, Atlantis Quartet is a band whose music "defies labels" (MPR). Their shows at the Artists' Quarter were always fantastic and I'm sure that will be the case this time around at KJ's Hideaway. Shows are at 6:30 pm and 9:00 pm.

And that's it! Here it is, our very first updated email newsletter, drawing to a close. Did you find it useful? What could be do better or do differently? We value your feedback. Feel free to reply to this email and share what you think. And remember that we appreciate you! Thank you for subscribing.

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Published: Tuesday, November 9, 2021. Photo (Billy Holloman) by Don Berryman.